Death in Room Five (A Chief Inspector Littlejohn Mystery)

by George Bellairs

  ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, but you can depend on me.’

  ‘Thank you. And now I’ll be off. I propose to leave about eleven. Could you see that the party breaks up about then? Go to bed almost at once after I’ve left and don’t be afraid of anything that happens. You have a man from the local police almost outside your bedroom door and another posted in the garden, so even if you feel a bit nervous, you’ll be looked after.’

  ‘I’m not nervous. I can look after myself, Inspector, after what you’ve told me.’

  When Littlejohn got downstairs again, all the company had gathered in the lounge, even the Curries, who were usually late. Young Peter was with them this time, a tall, dark, curly-haired boy, who gazed on Littlejohn with awe. To get him out of the atmosphere of Bagatelle, he had been spending his time at the villa of an English couple at Golfe-Juan, who had volunteered to take him as soon as they heard of the plight in which his parents found themselves. He had just remained behind to say how-do-you-do to the Chief Inspector at his own request, and immediately afterwards left with his new friends, who were waiting at the door in their car.

  ‘And now we’ll all have another appetiser and get on with our meal.’

  Marriott was still throwing his weight about in a kind of false confidence in his own ability to handle matters.

  The two large rooms on the ground floor were only separated by wide glass doors and these had been thrown back, making one vast room. The tables had been joined together, too, and the party were to gather at one long one, like a banquet.

  ‘In honour of the Chief Inspector and a pity ‘is good lady’s not ‘ere to join him,’ said Marriott, explaining it all.

  The arrangement made the rooms more imposing and Littlejohn found himself admiring the furniture for the first time. In the past, he’d seemed too preoccupied to notice the details of Bagatelle.

  The long dining table was laid for twelve. The dining chairs were large and dignified and upholstered in petit-point tapestry. The carpet was a real Aubusson, but nobody knew it except Littlejohn, who had once had to study the subject in connection with a theft in Norwood, where a collector had used priceless carpets instead of paper on the walls, and had been stabbed to death in the middle of his choicest one.

  To add a touch of lugubriousness to the proceedings, something had gone wrong with the electricity, which kept flickering up and down and now and again reduced the filaments to a mere red glow. It reminded you of travelling by night in an old-fashioned tramcar.

  ‘They can’t do anythin’ proper here,’ grumbled Marriott. ‘Not even make electricity. You’d think we was runnin’ it off batteries.’

  They were all standing around, wondering what they ought to do. Three murders and a funeral. It was hardly the time for festivities, even if Littlejohn was saying good bye to them. Besides, they didn’t quite know how they ought to treat Littlejohn.

  ‘Come to the table, everybody. Dinner’s ready.’

  Marriott was still throwing his weight about. Perhaps it was as well. Nobody else seemed to take the initiative.

  ‘We’ve got a bottle or two of wine to cheer us up. You don’t mind, do you, Mrs. Bewmont? In fact, I must say I think a glass or two…as medicine, of course…would do you good, Mrs. Bewmont. You look all-in.’

  No answer. Instead, they all sorted themselves out and sat down to table; Mrs. Beaumont at the head and Marriott at the foot. The loving couples kept together and Littlejohn found himself at Mrs. Beaumont’s right, with Mrs. Currie on the other side.

  The curtains were drawn and the room was lighted by a single large chandelier with a silk shade which threw a glow over the table and the heads of those sitting there, and left the rest in shadow. The cross-eyed maid who was serving, stood in the gloom with only now and then a brief illuminated view of her as she passed the dishes or changed the plates. She was not very good at it, and got mixed up now and then.

  Hors d’œuvres, roast veal, ice-cream and peaches, cheese…They followed one another to an accompaniment of small talk. The conversation was subdued, as though those assembled expected Littlejohn to start talking at any time and solve the crime before their eyes.

  Four bottles of wine all jumbled up on the table and everyone drinking indiscriminately, except Mrs. Beaumont, who ostentatiously poured out glasses of Vichy water.

  Nobody proposed a toast. Littlejohn might have been one of the Turnpike party. In any case, on the night of Dawson’s funeral, it seemed out of place.

  Littlejohn watched Sheldon and Marriott putting down glass after glass of red wine.

  ‘You’ve had quite enough.’

  Mrs. Sheldon had been watching the performance with distaste.

  ‘Well, Chief Inspector? Any theories of who might have done these crimes?’

  Marriott was getting impatient.

  ‘Hardly, sir. That’s why I’ve had to turn the cases over to the French police.’

  ‘All the same, accordin’ to what I gather, you think that one of us at this table is the murderer…’

  Sheldon, bold from his wine, spoke loudly, almost truculently.

  ‘Hush!’

  His wife glared at him and plucked at his sleeve.

  ‘No harm in gettin’ to know what the Inspector thinks, is there, my dear?’

  ‘Not here.’

  Mrs. Beaumont was on her feet.

  ‘We’ll leave the gentlemen to their coffee and the dregs of their alcohol. Do you mind closing the partitions, Mr. Humphries, and we’ll be quiet on our own till you’ve drunk your fill and care to join us.’

  When the ladies had gone and the glass doors had been closed, Fonsine served coffee. The men sat down at table again. They could see the women through the glass, seated in a circle, throwing now and then anxious looks at the group of what looked like conspirators sitting with the empty bottles before them.

  ‘Bring in that bottle of liqueur brandy I gave you, Fonsine.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Humphries had to interpret for him.

  ‘Le cognac, Fonsine.’

  There was a fuss in obtaining clean glasses and then Marriott served the fine with a trembling hand.

  ‘This is good. Spent all me life in the wine trade and I give you my word…’

  They sat in silence, their faces lit by the glow of the chandelier; behind them the gloom of the room. Now and then the lights continued to flicker.

  ‘Before you go, Inspector, you’d better tell us how far you’ve gone and what to expect next…’

  It was Gauld this time, suddenly talkative after his wine. He threw a glance over his shoulder in the direction of Mary Hannon, also talkative in the drawing-room.

  ‘Yes. Let’s know the worst and when we can expect to get home.’

  Marriott helped himself to more brandy.

  ‘If it will be of any use or comfort to you, we’ll examine the case in detail. I say case, because it’s all one…’

  Littlejohn wiped his mouth and looked around. All eyes were on him. Marriott seemed sleepy.

  ‘I’ll not mince words, gentlemen, and you must be prepared to hear things you don’t like.’

  ‘Let’s have the truth. We’ve been blundering in the dark for long enough.’

  Currie said it with conviction. He was now the only dead-sober member of the party, with the exception of Littlejohn, but his face was white and strained. For the first time, the Chief Inspector noticed that Currie had a facial tic. A twitch of the nose when he was excited.

  ‘Some of you joined this party because you’d drawn places. Others bought tickets from those who’d won them, because they’d reasons of their own for coming. I won’t divide one class from the other, but you, Gauld, wished to be near Miss Hannon.’

  Gauld looked daggers and put down his coffee cup very slowly and very deliberately.

  ‘That’s my own business and I’ll trouble you…’

  ‘Shut up! We all know it. Why pretend we don’t. We asked for this. Now you’re gettin’ it
. Go on, Inspector.’

  Currie, his nose twitching, turned on Gauld, like a chairman silencing an unruly committee-man.

  ‘Well, he shouldn’t…’

  ‘That’ll do.’

  ‘Mr. Sheldon, too. He didn’t want to come, but his wife insisted. She liked Dawson’s company.’

  Sheldon swallowed a mouthful of cognac and made a face.

  ‘Resent that! But, as Currie says, everyone knows, so why get in a temper about the truth. Resent it, all the same. Might have spared me that, Chie’ Inspector.’

  It almost seemed that Littlejohn was deliberately choosing the most offensive aspects of the case. All the men began to look uncomfortable.

  ‘Humphries took the chance of being conductor of the group because he speaks French very well. But that wasn’t the prime reason. He is in love with Miss Blair and, although she doesn’t or didn’t love him, he hoped to persuade her during the trip.’

  Humphries choked and tried to get up.

  ‘Sit down. If you wish me to stop I can easily do so and go back to Juan. You asked me for a full account. If you don’t like it, so much the worse.’

  It might have been the brandy which made Littlejohn feel irritable. Or it might have been the way in which this motley crew of half-drunken holiday-makers had spoiled his own trip and kept him from the company of his wife. Now, he felt like facing them with all their petty motives and wringing from them, somehow, fresh reactions which would end the impasse once and for all.

  ‘As far as I can see, the Misses Hannon and the Curries are the only members who came purely for a holiday. They drew tickets or bought them cheaply, and a trip of this kind was a godsend to them.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting that Miss Blair had any ulterior motive, are you?’

  Humphries hastily drank off the dregs of his brandy and put down his glass with a bang.

  ‘She came as company for Alderman Dawson, but I doubt that he was the main attraction. She rather likes your attentions, Mr. Humphries, and I’ve no doubt a holiday with an agreeable companion like yourself finally made up her mind to accompany her uncle, who otherwise would, I’m sure, have been an old bore to her.’

  ‘You’re wrong there.’

  Humphries wanted somebody to give him hope about Marie Ann Blair and cast his bleary eyes round for an answer.

  ‘You want to stop dancin’ round Marie Ann, Humphries, an’ show her who’s boss. She’ll appreciate you better. Take it from me.’

  Humphries turned on Marriott.

  ‘You’ve a lot to give advice about. An old bachelor who’s after a wealthy widow and can’t pluck up courage to…’ Marriott staggered to his feet and overturned his glass. ‘What do you mean, you young whippersnapper? I’ll…’ Littlejohn paused in lighting his pipe.

  ‘You know he’s right, Marriott. You did pluck up courage, though, didn’t you? She said “No”…’

  ‘Who’s bin sayin’ things behind my back? Who’s bin spyin’ on me? Who told you? I want to know.’

  Littlejohn finished with the match, blew it out and sat back.

  ‘And every one of you had hardly a good word for Dawson, had you? Marriott, because he beat him to the post, proposed to Mrs. Beaumont, and was accepted.’

  There was a murmur of surprise from all but Marriott, who picked up his glass, mopped up the spilled brandy with his napkin, and poured himself another helping.

  ‘And what if he did? No cause to wish him dead. More cause to pity ‘im, marrying an old baggage like Bewmont.’

  Sheldon wagged a tipsy forefinger at him.

  ‘Now, now, now, Marriott. No runnin’ down the ladies in the officers’ mess. Besides, till we got ‘ere, you were almost as attentive to Mrs. Beaumont as is our young frien’ Humphries to the charmin’ Marie Ann. I see now why you suddenly changed and got scornful about Mrs. Beaumont. She’d turned you down, had she?’

  ‘You be careful what you’re sayin’, Sheldon. I know when I’m not wanted. You don’t. Your wife doesn’t want you. Makin’ up to every man she comes across.’

  Before anyone could intervene, Sheldon was milling round, clawing at Marriott, shaking him by the throat. The women in the next room were on their feet, too, making for the connecting door in a tight mass.

  Currie hurried to keep them out whilst Littlejohn and Humphries separated the other two.

  Finally, Sheldon and Marriott sat facing each other, panting and glaring.

  ‘I’ll see you pay for this, Sheldon. I’m not Dawson, you know. You know what I mean. You caught Dawson and your missus in a compromisin’ situation at Avig’on, didn’t you? You waited and killed him…’

  Littlejohn hit the table with the flat of his hand.

  ‘Be quiet, both of you. You’d all motives for wanting Dawson out of the way. Sheldon because his wife had betrayed him with Dawson and he heard about it on this trip. Marriott because Dawson had always beaten him to the post. Even at school, Dawson took the honours from you, Marriott. Be quiet, I say. You want to know what I know. You shall hear it. When you overheard Mrs. Beaumont say she’d marry Dawson, you saw red, didn’t you, Marriott? But not more, after all, than poor Sheldon, or Humphries, for that matter. Dawson didn’t like Humphries for some reason and set out to stop him getting the girl he’s mad about.’

  The men were now so fascinated by Littlejohn’s talk and each so eager to hear that everyone else had a motive as strong as his own, that they kept quiet and listened. Had they made a concerted effort to silence Littlejohn, it would all have ended, then and there. But they were too anxious to know about the rest.

  ‘Even Currie. Dawson was a constant thorn in his flesh at the office. Currie is happy in his marriage and his home. But Dawson is a director of the concern he works for and in which he spends most of his life. Dawson, Dawson, Dawson, all the working day might be enough to drive a man off his head.’

  ‘But not me. I didn’t care a damn about Dawson.’

  Currie had been drinking brandy and now his tone was growing truculent, too. A new Currie, this time.

  ‘Anybody else you can incriminate?’

  Humphries raised his face, which was flushed and spiteful, and almost climbed across the table to thrust it in Littlejohn’s.

  ‘Mrs. Beaumont is, of course, a trustee of the Turnpike society. She thought she ought to come to see things straight and above board.’

  Marriott sat up.

  ‘Nosey Parker. Mrs. Grundy…Eh? But that’s not all. At first, she kept a sus…suspicious eye on friend Dawson. He was spendin’ her money, you see. She’d invested in Dawson’s bankrupt business an’ he came to Cannes to blue it in. I overheard her givin’ him the best tickin’-off he’d ever had in his life. An’ then, Dawson shed crocodile tears, said he hadn’ a friend in the world, and would she marry him. An’, believe it or not, she said she would.’

  He tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘But don’ you believe it. She was only kiddin’. Ask me, for what it’s worth, when she thought it over, she got mad an’ stuck him in the back with a rabbit knife.’

  Littlejohn leaned quietly over the table.

  ‘Who told you it was a rabbit knife, Marriott?’

  ‘Who? Me? Why Madame…what’s she called? Henri’s mother. She was all over the place huntin’ for it. Even said she was sure it had been used for the murder. So don’ you try to catch me out.’

  ‘The rest of the ladies have no cause to love Dawson. The Hannons…He brought about the downfall of their father, who was, we must confess, drinking heavily. But Dawson seems to have caused him a public disgrace. And Mrs. Sheldon…But that doesn’t matter. You all could have killed him. You’d all motives, more or less strong.’

  ‘But we didn’t kill him, Littlejohn. We were all here when he was murdered. All except Humphries and Marie Ann, who were out together. We’ve all got alibis. How can you crack those?’

  Currie gave him a triumphant look.

  ‘The alibis are all broken. Dawson was killed in a matter of minute
s. Anyone could have simply left the room for three minutes, stabbed Dawson, hidden his body in the bushes in the garden, and taken it down to Palm Beach later. Any excuse. A box of matches from a bedroom, a visit to the bathroom, a stroll in the hall. Three minutes, just to pick up a knife, follow Dawson outside, and stab him. There he lay, unconscious, but alive…’

  ‘And I suppose whoever did it, then shouldered the heavy body, and walked it down to Palm Beach in full view…?’

  Humphries sounded nasty about it. All of them were smarting under the disclosure of their private affairs and peccadillos, and they all looked pleased at the question.

  ‘No. He wasn’t carried. He was driven down in the motor-truck which is in the shed in the garden. Another five minutes of a job. Three minutes from here to Palm Beach; shoot off the body; three minutes back. The house was shut up to keep out the mosquitoes. The windows are soundproof…plate-glass…Nobody heard. Then, whoever did it, strolled back. “I’d just forgotten my cigarettes in my room,’ or, ‘the air’s a bit fuggy. Just take a breath at the door.” It was done.’

  They were quiet now, trying to cast back their minds to the night of the crime. They eyed one another suspiciously. It was obvious what they were thinking. Now they were sure the killer was in the party, and it wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  ‘We mustn’t forget Sammy, either.’

  They looked surprised, as though the other murders were side-shows, matters concerning somebody else.

  ‘Whoever killed Dawson was seen by one person. Sammy. He was taking a stroll outside his café and saw the motor-cart on the waste ground at Palm Beach. He also saw the silhouette of whoever was driving it as he sat on the seat behind. When Sammy heard of the crime, he tumbled to what had happened. He didn’t know or properly recognise the man at Palm Beach, but there was something about him Sammy was sure he’d know again. So he came to Bagatelle next day, hung around outside until his man emerged, recognised and challenged him, and demanded blackmail. That night, when he met the murderer to receive the spoils, Sammy got, instead, the knife. I wonder what it was that Sammy identified his man by.’